AZN vs. NVS, ABT, ABBV, PFE, MRK, SNY, JNJ, VRTX, REGN, and BMY
Should you be buying AstraZeneca stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of AstraZeneca include Novartis (NVS), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), AbbVie (ABBV), Pfizer (PFE), Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK), Sanofi (SNY), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY). These companies are all part of the "pharmaceutical preparations" industry.
AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) and Novartis (NYSE:NVS) are both large-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, valuation, community ranking, profitability and institutional ownership.
Novartis has a net margin of 31.33% compared to AstraZeneca's net margin of 13.30%. Novartis' return on equity of 32.15% beat AstraZeneca's return on equity.
AstraZeneca has a beta of 0.47, suggesting that its stock price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Novartis has a beta of 0.53, suggesting that its stock price is 47% less volatile than the S&P 500.
20.4% of AstraZeneca shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 13.1% of Novartis shares are held by institutional investors. 0.0% of Novartis shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
Novartis received 473 more outperform votes than AstraZeneca when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 61.42% of users gave Novartis an outperform vote while only 58.06% of users gave AstraZeneca an outperform vote.
Novartis has lower revenue, but higher earnings than AstraZeneca. Novartis is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AstraZeneca, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, AstraZeneca had 17 more articles in the media than Novartis. MarketBeat recorded 32 mentions for AstraZeneca and 15 mentions for Novartis. Novartis' average media sentiment score of 0.43 beat AstraZeneca's score of 0.36 indicating that Novartis is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
AstraZeneca presently has a consensus price target of $81.00, indicating a potential upside of 6.34%. Novartis has a consensus price target of $115.00, indicating a potential upside of 18.06%. Given Novartis' higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Novartis is more favorable than AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca pays an annual dividend of $1.93 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Novartis pays an annual dividend of $2.43 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. AstraZeneca pays out 94.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Novartis pays out 32.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.
Summary
Novartis beats AstraZeneca on 12 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding AZN and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NASDAQ and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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